Dorota Alicja Nieznalska (born 19 September 1973) is a Polish visual artist and sculptor. Nieznalska's controversial installation Pasja (2002), which included the placement of an image of the penis upon a metal Greek cross, resulted in a notable scandal, as the display was condemned as immoral and blasphemous by Polish conservative Catholics. The group exhibition at which the installation was presented was closed down by the authorities, while Nieznalska herself faced legal charges on account of an alleged violation of a provision of the Polish criminal code prohibiting blasphemy. The sculptor was successful in fighting off the blasphemy conviction following the favorable ruling of an appeals court in 2009. Early life Dorota Alicja Nieznalska was born to a devout family in Gdańsk in 1973. Raised in the Gdańsk-Gdynia–Sopot Tricity area, Nieznalska was educated at an art high school in Gdynia Orłowo. Nieznalska enrolled at Gdańsk's Academy of Fine Arts as a student of sculpture in 1993, a year after making her first solo exhibition in her native city. Nieznalska's fine arts instructors were the Professors Franciszek Duszeńko and Grzegorz Klaman. Nieznalska graduated from the academy in 1999 and exhibited a number of student works (Insemination, 1997; The Pleasure Principle, 1998; Absolution, 1999) in the 1990s. She subsequently participating in three major exhibitions in Gdańsk, Warsaw, and Białystok in 2000 and 2001. Pasja (2002) Blasphemy charges were levelled against Nieznalska after an exhibition featuring the 2002 work Pasja ("Passion"), an artistic installation concerned with the themes of masculinity and suffering. The installation was displayed at the experimental Gdańsk, Wyspa Gallery, an institution associated with the academy, and consisted of two elements: a large Greek cross made of metal was suspended from the ceiling of the gallery, and covered; its center was filled in with an image of a man's hips, thighs, and penis. Behind the cross, the viewer's attention was drawn to a large video, its display projecting from an overhead angle the face and shoulders of a grimacing man in the act of weight-lifting. The viewer's inability to behold the man's body, his other body parts being cut off from the screen, concocted an effect of ambiguity as to the activity of the man on the screen, suggesting that the man's feeling of torment could have been the effect of other kinds of activity. The installation would be described by some as depicting "the penis of Christ" in the ensuing